AMERICAN David Blaine has starved himself in a coffin, frozen himself in ice cubes, hung upside down, survived in chains in a sphere of salt water and stood on tiny platform in the wind at great height.

One of the world's most famous magicians and endurance artists, the 38-year-old Brooklyn-born stunt man says there's more to come.

A big China gig is scheduled in 2014, but he won't disclose details.

The muscled, 6-foot (1.83m) showman is known as the Hip-hop Houdini, and the legendary escape artist Harry Houdini (1874-1926) is his icon. His close-up magic on the streets of New York has been called grunge magic.

Blaine's sensational flirtation with death is highly controversial.

"Whenever you break out of your comfort zone and do something that you were not supposed to do or you were not expected to do, you find out the truth about yourself," he said in a recent interview with Shanghai Daily. He was in the city to perform close-up magic at a children's charity show for the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, an event organized by local celebrity TV host Yue-Sai Kan.

Dressed simply in a dark blue jacket and open shirt, nothing fancy, Blaine strolled around, entertaining guests with close-up magic and helped to raise nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.5 million).

It was his second visit to Shanghai. On his first trip early last year, he traveled with former US President George W. Bush to perform for Bush and "a bunch of important Chinese officials."

"Every year from Thanksgiving to Christmas, I travel across the country (the US) to do as much charity as I can," he said. "I do magic to sick children in the hospital and to underage children in the prison. And I was much honored to be asked to come to China this time.

"When I do magic (for children), it's so easy but it has such a huge impact on them that I end up leaving and trying not to cry every time," he continued. "I think the greatest accomplishment is helping others."

Then he started close-up magic, a piece of cake for him, but a wide eye-opener for most people.

He asked a woman to pick one card from a deck, and made it disappear all of a sudden - she found it in her purse next to her. And when she shook hands with Blaine, she found herself minus a wristwatch, which he graciously returned.

Everywhere Blaine goes there are gasps and screams of disbelief and though the astonishment is routine, he still seems to genuinely enjoy it and flashes a mischievous smile.

Although Blaine is best-known for his impressive endurance tests, he prefers to be called a magician, or "mo shu shi," the Chinese equivalent he learned from the Shanghai trip.

Blaine was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Puerto Rican father and Russian mother. His father left when he was little and his mother worked three jobs, often leaving Blaine in the library and later picking him up. According to him, it was the librarian who showed him a book of card tricks, which inspired his interest in magic. He also was inspired by magicians performing in New York subways.

"I grew up in Brooklyn and we had very few things," he recalled. "We didn't have a TV. All I had was a deck of cards that I carried everywhere."

When he was 18, Blaine was jailed for jumping off a subway. In jail, the only way to keep from getting beaten up was to take the cards others were using to gamble and do card tricks, he said.

Even the guards were attracted to his show.

"Normally they (the guards and the prisoners) don't get along but when I started to do magic, they were all running around and screaming," he said. "It was at that time when I came up with the idea to take magic to everyone."

Blaine made his name on the streets of New York. In 1997, the ABC network aired his first television special "David Blaine: Street Magic," which changed people's concept of magic by focusing on the spectator reactions rather than just what the magician was doing.

"My magic is one-on-one communications. If you're not connecting with people, there is no magic," he said. "That's how Houdini worked - by taking his magic out on to the streets. I'm continuing in that tradition."

Blaine is often described as trying to emulate "escapologist" Houdini.

"Houdini had risked his life to prove that we can do things that we didn't think are possible," he said. "As a magician, Houdini was trying to discover the real side of magic: things that scientists or doctors do not believe to be possible but really are."

One of his first big stunts was in April 1999, when he was buried for seven days in a tight-fitting see-through plastic coffin beneath three tons of water near New York's Trump Place. He ate nothing and drank only two to three tablespoons of water a day. He had an emergency buzzer.

His next stunt, in November 2000, was "Frozen in Time" and Blaine, wearing light clothes, was encased in a block of ice in New York's Times Square. A tube provided air and water, another removed his urine. He was encased in ice for 61 hours, 40 minutes, and 15 seconds before being removed and taken to hospital. He said he still couldn't walk normally one month after the performance.

In May 2002, Blaine was lifted by crane onto a 30-meter-high, 56-centimeter-wide pillar in New York's Bryant Park. With only small elevated handles, he was buffeted by wind and remained there for 35 hours without food or water. He ended the feat by jumping onto a landing platform made out of a high pile of cardboard boxes; he was reported to have suffered a mild concussion.

One year later in September 2003, Blaine started a 44-day endurance fast named "Above the Below." He was sealed into a transparent case and suspended 9 meters above the River Thames in London. He had no food or nutrients and survived on 4.5 liters of water every day.

In May 2006, he spent 117 hours in a 8-foot-diameter human aquarium, a sphere of saltwater in front of Lincoln Center in New York. He had tubes for nutrition and air. He was pulled from the sphere disoriented and dehydrated, showing signs of liver failure. He initially had planned to abandon his breathing apparatus, hold his breath and then slip his chains before exiting the sphere. That was a feat too far.

The celebrity magician also appeared on the April 30, 2008, episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, on which he held his breath underwater for more than 17 minutes, breaking the Guinness World Record at that time. To do that, he trained intensively for two years and spent time with the US Navy SEALS.

"I'd always wanted to do these types of things - pieces of magic that are not illusions but real actions in the tradition of Houdini who was an escape artist doing things: training hard, keeping a serious regimen," he said in a previous interview.

"When you challenge yourself in public, you have to deliver it," he said. "That's why I like to do things in public."

He said it was "amazing" to be encased in boxes, blocks of ice or stand on that pillar all by himself. He tried hanging upside, but that's extremely dangerous and requires careful medical. He was caught occasionally standing upright.

"You think about everything and your brain goes everywhere (during these stunts)," he said: "There's no interruption. You don't have to worry about who's calling you, dinner plans, what bills you have to pay ... It's nice to have time to think. And that's part of what I like about doing these things."

Among all the death-defying feats, "Frozen in Time" was the most challenging.

For three days and three nights, he had to stay awake. "The sleep deprivation started to tweak my brain and caused hallucinations," he recalled.

"I was awake, my eyes were open, but I was dreaming at the same time. I didn't know whether I was having nightmares or they were really happening. It was very, very, scary because I didn't know if I was ever going return to normality."

Asked in the interview if he is ever afraid of death, he didn't reply directly:

"When I learned how to hold my breath - it's not just for holding my breath - it's the learning, the journey to get there, which is incredible," he said.

Asked whether the prospect of being a father in two months has changed his view of death-defying feats, he replied, "I don't know. Ask me in two months."

It's all about testing the limits.

"By trying all these things, you learned about what you were able to do, how strong the human body is and how adaptable the human organism is," Blaine said. "They make your senses become extremely alert and awake."

He compares it to the awakening of taste buds on trying good food. "When you learn to do a new skill, you are making your senses come to life."

He is actually, in a way, celebrating life.

Blaine said in the interview that three years from now in China he will do something "that the world will never forget." He would not say what, so let's wait until 2014.

Quick and magical Q&A

Q: Is there one thing that you wish you could have done better?

A: Yes. Everything.

Q: Do you still practice every day?

A: Yes, every day.

Q: How many decks of cards do you use?

A: I use a few thousands of decks every year. They are normal decks made by the United States Playing Cards Co with my own design - the "DB" pattern.

Q: Do you have hobbies?

A: I like reading, and I like everything in the ocean. I always love the ocean, because that's where we came from originally - 240 million years ago we were little micros in the ocean.

Q: Does being a great magician help attract girls?

A: I think being a magician actually does the opposite: it keeps girls away. They think, "Oh this guy is a weirdo." But it worked on my fiancee.

Q: Do you teach magic?

A: I have a student (a baby girl) on the way (laugh). Well, I'm not sure. When a girl does magic, they call her a witch.

Q: Can everybody learn your magic/stunts?

A: If one person does something, anybody can do it. I always believe in that. That's my theory. It has always been since I was little.